Charlotte Whitford (CW), Diccie Ipock (DI), Marilyn Jones and Victor T. Jones Jr. (VJ) visited with Clifford Toler (CT) one Saturday afternoon in September or October (the week before Homecoming at New Haven Church) in the early to mid-1980s. Based on internal evidence, the interview occurred between 1979 and 1988, and probably before 1985, as I believe I was in High School at the time. The interview below is transcribed from a cassette tape in my possession (Victor T. Jones, Jr). The batteries in the cassette recorder were dying, and the resulting audio plays back faster than normal. Charlotte Whitford may have another cassette of the interview from her recorder. That copy may include information missing from my copy.
Between the two sides of the cassette, much conversation had taken place, as I didn’t hear the recorder stop in time to flip the cassette. Side one ends mid thought on the Normanfamily, and side two begins mid sentence on a land transaction. Presented below is the transcript of the cassette. Sometimes several conversations were going on at the same time. The transcription below follows the main conversation with Mr. Clifford, and at times is edited for clarity. For example, not every “um” and “er” is recorded, nor is every repetition of some of the facts. False starts when answering or asking questions, when the speaker is trying to gather his or her thoughts, are omitted many times. In some places, the audio is very faint, especially when Diccie Ipock is speaking, and such places are indicated by [inaudible].
Some facts are correct, others are not, so the information is presented with that caveat. For example, research indicates James Toler (Sr.) is the father of James, Charles, Amariah, Stephen and William, not Daniel, as indicated by Mr. Clifford.
Mr. Clifford Toler was born in 1903 and died in 1991. He lived in Willis Neck at the sharp curve on Willis Neck Road. During the interview, his wife (Nona Lee Toler, NT) and son (Clifford Toler Jr.—CTJr) made an appearance.
[Begin Side Two. Some conversation is missing between Sides One and Two.]
CT: There was 56 acres in that plot of land that Granddaddy bought from Uncle Henry Wetherington. He first married Alicia Ann Whitford. That was his first wife, Alicia Ann Whitford. And they had one daughter, And her name was Ann. They called her Ann, Ann Whitford. She’s buried over there at Pine Tree Cemetery.
CW: I’ve seen her gravestone.
CT: Ann Whitford.
CW: Ann Wetherington.
CT: Ann Wetherington, that’s right, but her mother was Alicia Ann Whitford. And she was daughter of David P. Whitford.
CW: We’ve got that. That’s in our Whitford family history book.
CT: Well Uncle Henry sold that place out to my Granddaddy Isaiah and moved way up there, you all know where Uncle Henry lived.
CW: Where was that place he sold to your Granddaddy Isaiah?
CT: Down there on James Swamp, and that was a John Hill Patent, but David P. Whitford had bought it off the John Hill Patent and Uncle Henry Wetherington bought it from David P. Whitford, and my Granddaddy bought it from Henry Wetherington.
CW: He bought it from David.
CT: No it was given to him. David P. Whitford gave it to his daughter Alicia Ann. She married Henry Wetherington.
DI: Was that the same Henry Wetherington that married Aunt Laura?
CT: The very same one. She was his second wife.
DI: Well I thought he married Uncle Louis’ sister the first time.
CT: No, he married Alicia Ann Whitford.
DI: And that was Mrs. Susan’s mother and daddy.
CW: I don’t know. The one he was talking about there were two there was a Wetherington that married twice.
CT: He married Uncle Bill Toler’s daughter, Laura.
DI: Well I thought the first time he married Uncle Amariah and Uncle Louis and all them’s sister.
CT: No, she was Alicia Ann Whitford. Well that’s how come old man Henry rid that property that my Granddaddy bought from him. But it was a draw, or a division of the John Hill Patent. John Hill owned everything from James Swampright on up to Hill’s Neck.
CW: Hill’s Neck, that’s where Hill’s Neck came from.
CT: That’s right. John Hill. Hill’s Neck.
CW: Did you all know that?
CT: There it is. It was John Hill.
CW: And he got that land…he was just granted all that land. He didn’t buy it.
CT: Way back there in them days after New Bern was settled and got a court house there all you had to do was go stake off your claim and go there and file it on record and pay your taxes on it.
CW: And that’s how he got it, John Hill. That’s why they call it the John Hill Patent.
CT: Yeah. The John Hill Patent. It was patent land. All you had to do was stake off your claim and that’s all there was to it. There was land here. Everybody had plenty of land. All them old folks back yonder had more land than they even wanted, they couldn’t walk over it, some of them.
CW: What was the name of the school you went to?
CT: I don’t know what the name of the school was, but the church was called Friendship.
CW: I bet it was called the same.
CT: Friendship School. I think I’ve always known it as Friendship School.
CW: Do you remember a grave yard being up there being near Friendship Church?
DI: [inaudible]
CT: Where was that cemetery?
DI: Somewhere close to Friendship Church. They said Mr. Dave Whitford would stop and clean it off sometimes. He sold fish….
CT: Do you know who was buried there?
DI: No, I don’t have no idea. I didn’t know there was one there.
CW: You can’t tell there’s one there now.
CT: Was it on this side of Deep Branch, or the east side?
DI: It was right close to the church.
CT: Well it was on the west side.
CW: It must not have been very big. Weyerhaeuser has cleared that up and if there was a cemetery there you can’t tell it now, because I have looked. That’s why I asked.
DI: I don’t think there were very many graves.
CW: It must not have been very big at all. And no tombstones.
CT: [inaudible] I never knew. I went to that church from the time, Lord, I couldn’t walk. Daddy used to take me in his arms. All those folks across the creek over there used to go to that church. And all on the north side of the creek went to that church, out there at Friendship Church. Used to be so many people there. After Uncle Amariah’s Duff, Duffy, after he got to be a preacher about 18 years old he was converted and went to preaching. He come up there served that church time after time. He’d maybe preach there a couple of years and go off and someone would say “I want Duff back” so they’d get Duff back. I was a little boy growing up but my daddy would tote me there to preaching.
CW: Do you remember if they had an organ or any way to play music?
CT: Oh, they had an organ, and later on they had a piano. Her granddaddy was deacon of that church, Uncle Bill Stilley, and her daddy, Joshua Stilley, he wasn’t a deacon, but your granddaddy was, Uncle Bill.
DI: I know he was a deacon at … [inaudible]
CT: He was a deacon over there? … I know that Bill Stilley was a deacon there, I was old enough to know that for sure. You know, Diccie, it was mighty bad. That church busted all up, you know. They had, like they do in a lot of churches, like they do in our church out here. The convention there and nobody knew what the trouble. It was all started over a Christmas Program, that a school teacher…now they used to teach school there in the school house on the other side of the creek, right there where the Caton Road is, used to be a school house there. And all on that side of the creek went to that schoolhouse and all on this side went to the school house I was telling you about, and later on they built a new one near Leon and Dezelle. But, the church was there long before that new school house was built on the north side of the creek. Yeah, there came a teacher out there and she wanted a program, a Christmas program. And there was some objection but she said, “Why, there’s no need of that” and I don’t think she ever had any idea that it was going to bust up the church. And so they kept on, and Christmas come, and somebody put a Christmas tree in there and it did some people so bad that the church broke up and they know it. Diccie, did they ever preach any more at that church?
DI: I don’t know. They said it busted up and some pulled up and went over there close home.
CT: They didn’t build them a church. I think that crowd over here started going to Kitt Swamp and out here at Macedonia.
CW: And it was over the fact that they didn’t think they should have a Christmas program or a Christmas tree in the church. Was that what it amounted to?
CT: That’s what it was. It wasn’t nothing, there was never no … Look the thing died just like it started. …Nobody ever knew. Somebody insulted somebody…
CW: Do you ever remember anybody who played the organ or the piano
CT: I remember at first along, they didn’t have either in the church. Her uncle Jesse Stilley sung tenor, I don’t know [inaudible]…singing in the choir and by and by they got an organ. And Ira Whitford, your husband’s daddy, played the organ.
CW: I had heard he played somewhere or another.
CT: He played that organ for years and years and years. And he had a brother named Robert. He was a straight church man, as I had ever seen. He was Rodman’s and them boys’ daddy.
CW: How about John Whitford.
CT: John…he went there to church too. He married a Stapleford, Blanche Stapleford.
CW: Well, I hope that ya’ll can go to Homecoming…it’s not tomorrow, but Sunday week.
CT: We will if we can. Later on though they did away with the organ, it wore out. And they done away with that organ and got a piano, and then some of the younger folks then took over the music, piano playing. But before they got rid of that organ, Bill, Uncle Pitt’s youngest son, Bill. He married Nan Ipock from Asbury. She played the organ until the organ finally got to where they couldn’t play and they got a piano. I believe Andrew Whitford’s daughter played that piano, Nita, she played that piano.
CW: Do you know how in the world Mr. Bill Toler got up with Miss Nan Ipock?
CT: She was teaching school. They built school house there, a nice school house out there. And she taught school there and they got to courting and got married.
DI: She used to go with …Didn’t Uncle Bill go with Mertie some?
CT: Just a little, messing around a little. She and Oma Gaskins. Is she living?
DI: Yes. Mighty feeble, but she’s living.
CW: All those girls…You would call them girls. We call her Omie, Nina, and Beanie all three are living. Mr. Jesse is dead. That was all in that family?
CT: There was Elbert, there was Nina, Naomi, Kate and Angelina.
DI: Angelina died young.
CW: That’s where Geneva’s daughter, name Angie, got her name from?
CT: Jesse’s wife was Angie. Jesse Gaskins. Jesse Gaskins, he had two brothers, Elbert married Cornie Purifoy. Jesse married Angie Price. John Allen he died a young man.
DI: No, not so young, he married…
CT: Did he marry?
DI: Rowena Cayton.
CT: Was that Charlie’s daughter?
DI: That was Irving Cayton’s sister.
CT: You told it right. I remember that now Diccie. He did married Rowena Cayton. Irving Cayton that married Beanie.
CW: Do you know how Caton got it’s name by chance?
CT: Unless it was from … you know after Louis Caton died away. He had Charlie was the oldest one and he had a brother Henry.
CW: He went to Pamlico County. No he didn’t it was on the edge of Pamlico County.
CT: He moved to Kinstonand stayed there. He married Lena Stapleford. He went to Kinstonand stayed a number of years and then moved back to Olympiain Pamlico County. Well, one of his sons married an Ipock out here, Florenceand Kelly Ipock’s daughter. Her name was Sandra. And they said
CW: Jack, was it Jack Caton?
CT: Mack, Mack Caton, I think his name was Mack.
CW: I knew that family real well. Well I knew the younger ones real well. The younger ones of Mr. Henry’s family.
CT: Now old man Charlie’s dead, isn’t he. Well, is any of his family live there except Rodman and his wife?
DI: Yes, Durwood lives there.
CT: Does Durwood live there?
CW: He’s got a house built out in front of the old house. Nobody lives in the old house.
CT: You asked why did that neighborhood out this way were called Caton, if it didn’t get it from that, I don’t know, cause I can tell you Louis Caton was an old man, Lord have mercy in this world.
CW: How about Dave Caton.
DI: Dave Caton owned a lot of land
CT: That is the truth!
CW: Who was Dave Caton
DI: I don’t know, but Pa bought the cemetery from him
CW: Dave, Old man Dave Caton, he had a son. What was his son’s name? I’ve heard my mama call it.
DI: I don’t know.
CW: That land, the Caton field that we have right there by the church. Somewhere Dave Caton is mentioned on one of those deeds
CT: That was the Dave Caton place.
CW: We bought that land from Mr. Bryan Knox’s daughter, and her husband. We bought it from Cecil Toler and his wife, who was Mr. Bryan Knox’s daughter. And they got it from Mr. Bryan somehow. Mr. Bryan Knox. Does that help you any? That’s as far back as I can get.
CT: What, the Dave Caton place? That was not a Knox place…cause Old man Dave Caton lived there way back yonder when my mama was a small girl. I don’t know who Dave Caton was, whether he come from Edward or Aurora way, or whether he was raised with these Catons right here. Right straight across that opening over yonder on that big road was the Caton House.
CW: Mrs. Sadie Norman’s family came from there.
CT: Sadie, Sadie Norman. There was Alex. What was the other one?
Nona Toler: Noah was their brother.
CT: There was Alex, Noah, Lewis and Tom.
NT: Was Aunt Cora [inaudible]
CT: Alex, her uncle married a Caton. His daughter a Willis.
DI: Dave Caton and his wife is buried at the High Bridge.
CT: Aunt Sarah Jane, Uncle Louis’s wife, was a Caton and I think she came from over around Small or Edward or Aurora somewhere and it could have been that this Dave Caton come from that direction too.
CW: Some of the Caton’s up there spell their name C-A-T-O-N, Beanie, her husband spells it C-A-Y-T-O-N. Do you know anything about that?
CT: No, it’s all the same thing. It’s just like Wetherington, some say Witherington, Wetherington, and other ways to spell Wetherington.
CW: The reason ask that, one Sunday at church we were talking about how to spell Caton, outside talking about what to put on those baseball shirts, and Preacher David wanted to know how to spell Caton. I said “C-A-Y-T-O-N.” Somebody else said, “No, that’s not right, it’s C-A-T-O-N” He decided to put CATON on the shirts because it was shorter word and it was cheaper. But I really wonder and on some maps it’s written C-A-Y-T-O-N and some C-A-T-O-N.
CT: It’s just a matter of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
CW: Like Purifoy was once Purify.
CT: It’s just a matter of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, English tongue. English it’s called. [Omitted about 3 minutes of discussion on the history of the English language and England]
CW: Let me ask you this, you mentioned railroads. There was a railroad up there to Caton by Friendship church, did you say?
CT: Yes, between where her Aunt Lucy lives and old Friendship Church. Well, it isn’t over 50 yards from where Lucy lives, that old railroad. It come across the creek from Cool Springs over yonder. From Cool Springs, it came by Bryan Knox’s old home, across that swamp, and across there just east of where Lucy and Tom lived, and ran right on up in the backwoods there to where the Whitfords lived back up in there. You know there’s a road that passes by Leon Norman’s. Well, that’s the Whitford road. The Whitfords settled in that part of the country.
CW: That railroad went up that far?
CT: Clear to James’ Swamp.
CW: What was the purpose of it?
CT: Logs. Logging. It was a log road. They pulled log cars that they had what the called a skidder with grabs. They hauled the logs with oxen and made a bed, a log bed, along the railroad. And they had a log bed there, and this skidder would be mounted on the railroad. It run the railroad, because it could pull itself up and down. And it had a boom and the grabs, the train then would come along and run to the very last car, back up under it and back up and back up till the very last car next to the water tender where the loci was that pulled the train and they’d load that car, log car, pull up a little bit and load up the next one, pull up a little bit and load the next one. That’s what they were doing, logging. Broaddus and Ives Lumber Company come down here right about 1906 or 1907.
CW: That was the Boyce Ives?
CT: Broaddus and Ives Lumber Company. They come around here about 1906 or ’07. We were living at the Alfred Tunstall place I was telling you about a while ago.
DI: [inaudible] Won’t it Broaddus?
CT: Broaddus and Ives. They came from up Virginia way. My daddy quit farming and went to work with them after they logged out this part of the country they went to Truitt. And that’s how come that I spent three years in Truitt, working with Broaddus and Ives Lumber Company. Quit farming and went to work with them.
CW: Did they have a railroad that went to Truitt too?
CT: Oh, yes. They had a railroad track too. They logged this whole place from Truitt, they even logged Broad Creek section. You know where that is? Where all the Dunns and Staplefords used to live. Well they logged that section to. All there back of Ap Purifoys, you were telling me a while ago about this boy that married your kin people. He was a
CW: Fulcher?
CT: No, Caton.
CW: Yeah, Caton.
CW: Where was the Ap Purifoy Place?
CT: Right there, you know the old Purifoy Road it’s a hard surface road that goes right on to New Bern. You know where the Truitt Roadis? It used to be a dirt road. Ap Purifoy lived right there at the corner. He used to live in big white house there. A two-story white house.
CW: Do you know where Spring Hope Church is?
CT: Yes
CW: Did you live near that?
CT: No, we lived on another Truitt Road that this road I’m talking about the Truitt/Walker Road left where Ap Purifoy’s stayed went right on to Broad Creek and up into the Dunn and Stapleford neighborhood. Well now, right there at a place called Truitt, it went west then and come back into Purifoy Road down there where there was another road that went on across Morgans Swamp. Well, I lived on that old Truitt Road. Not but a little ways from the school house. Because the school house sat in the forks of the road.
CW: Yes, daddy went to school there.
CT: Now, Spring Hope Church has been there ever since I can remember. It was there when I was living down there.
CW: I got married in that church. Mine was the second wedding that they can ever figure out that was done in that church.
DI: [inaudible]
CW: Eva Mae, We couldn’t ever find any more history of weddings in that church. Because for a long time…that church almost closed. We couldn’t find any more recorded weddings. Eva Mae Jones Clark was the first one, and mine was the second. For a long time there, there no service there, maybe only once a month and it was just about gone. And it came up again.
CT: Well, there in that time, that was in 1911, or 12, or 13. Old Truitt Schoolhouse sat in the forks of Old Truitt Road and Spring Hope Church sat at the foot at the Walker Road. And my Aunt Becky, married Jesse Moore. Well, Jesse Moore and Aunt Becky moved down there and Uncle Jess farmed that land in front of where they lived and he owned a little store over there. And we didn’t live, about, I’d say, 200 yards, from them. That was back there in 1911, ’12, ’13.
DI: That was Lloyd, and Earl and all them’s daddy?
CT: His first children were Charlotte, Harvey and Mary.
CW: That’s where Mrs. Charlotte Toler.
CT: She was a Moore.
CW: Did you know Mr. King Purifoy?
CT: I’ve heard of him.
CW: It was right there in Olympia.
CT: What the Old Man, King?
CW: We call it Olympianow but it was in that area you were talking about.
CT: He was your granddaddy’s daddy. And Luther, was he was your granddaddy’s brother?
CW: Half brother.
CT: Yes, I’ve heard of him. Cause, the Ipocks. You [Diccie] married Andrew. Well, Ace, his daddy, and his daddy, and his brother Noah lived up there and right around that field was a road that went across Broad Creek. Old man King Purifoy lived in there. Right on Broad Creek. That’s where your granddaddy Ed was raised.
CW: Did ya’ll use the…when you got sick did you use the doctor over there in Aurora?
CT: No, we went to New Bern.
CW: You [to Diccie] used the one over there.
DI: Dr. Potts in Vanceboro some [inaudible]
CW: Didn’t you tell me you knew Mrs. Matt Jones and some of her brothers and uncles.
CT: This Jim, Jim, Cousin Matt’s daddy. Jim was son of Daniel. His family was Make. Well, Jim’s family was Make, Abe, and Matt. Matt married Tom Jones. Abe married a Jones girl, too. And Make married a girl from Bridgeton. But I can’t remember her name.
VJ: Ada
CT: Ada, that’s right. She lived down there in Bridgeton. And I don’t know Make’s boy, I don’t know Matt’s boy. I only know one of Abe’s boys. His name was…what was Abe’s son’s name that married Kelly Toler’s daughter?
DI: Osmond?
CT: Osmond, he married Ella Mae. I don’t know Make’s boy, but I’ve heard of them. I don’t really know none of Matt’s, Abe and Make’s sister, Matt, Tom Jones, I don’t know of but one of Matt’s boys, and I know him well. What was his name, Nona?
DI: Freddie.
CT: Freddie, Freddie. Freddie Jones.
CW: That’s his granddaddy.
CT: Is that right.
[Tape ended]